#### 4.1.8 Including element tags and paths in output

By default, DITA2Go includes several items from your DITA XML files in ASCII DCL, the intermediate representation of your document from which the final output is generated. These items include the original element tags and attributes, and the path used to select an output type for each element. These settings can be useful for project debugging.

To omit element tags and attributes from DCL output:

    [ElementOptions]
    ; IncludeElementTags = Yes (default, include original tags and
    ; attributes in the DCL, for possible downstream use) or No
    IncludeElementTags = No

To omit format selection paths from DCL output:

    [ElementOptions]
    ; ShowElementPath = Yes (default, include report of element path
    ; used to select each format in DCL after the format call) or No
    ShowElementPath = No

When ShowElementPath=Yes, the position of the element from which DITA2Go derived each paragraph or character span is written to DCL just ahead of the paragraph or span, enclosed in square brackets. This can be helpful when you specify an element path in [BlockFormatMaps] or [InlineFormatMaps], and the setting does not work as intended. You can see what DITA2Go considered the actual element path to be.

If you plan to keep the intermediate ASCII DCL file for further inspection or processing you must run dcl.exe twice: first to generate the intermediate ASCII DCL file, and second to generate the final output; see §2.7 Converting documents from the command line. However, you can direct DITA2Go to include the format selection paths in final output, also.

To include format selection paths in final output:

    [ElementOptions]
    ; DisplayElementPath = No (default) or Yes(display the element path
    ; used to select each format at the start of the text in that format)
    DisplayElementPath = Yes

When DisplayElementPath=Yes, any element-path information collected in DCL is included in final output, just ahead of the paragraph or span. DisplayElementPath is effective only when ShowElementPath=Yes.

To specify a character format for DisplayElementPath:

    [ElementOptions]
    ; ElementPathFormat = inline format used for element path display
    ElementPathFormat = CharFmt

Previous Topic: 4.1.7 Producing print output selectively

Next Topic: 4.1.9 Reusing or discarding ASCII DCL files

Parent Topic: 4.1 Specifying operating settings

Sibling Topics:

4.1.1 Connecting to XML catalogs

4.1.2 Accommodating specializations

4.1.3 Specifying a DITA XML DTD

4.1.4 Generating a map from a DITA topic file

4.1.5 Accommodating paths to network drives

4.1.6 Checking output type and file extension

4.1.7 Producing print output selectively

4.1.9 Reusing or discarding ASCII DCL files

4.1.10 Specifying how to treat cases, spaces, and wildcards